Fred Vergnoux edit
Sun, Jul 28, 2024 9:19AM • 54:33
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coach, swimmers, swimming, olympics, fred, work, pool, spain, learned, competition, belgium, athletes, difficult, plan, swim, world, maria, call, talk, years
SPEAKERS
Paul Barnett, Fred Vergnoux
Paul Barnett 00:00
Fred vanoo, good morning, and welcome to the great coaches podcast.
Fred Vergnoux 00:05
Good morning, Paul. Thank you very much for having me. Finally, we can, we can do that.
Paul Barnett 00:11
We've been talking for well over a year. To set this up, Fred, I'm really excited to talk to you today. Thank you. Could I start with something pretty simple. I already know the answer to this question, and I'm jealous. But could you tell us where you are in the world and what you've been up to so far today,
Fred Vergnoux 00:29
right now? Paula just drove about 12 hours from the south France to Belgium, where actually need to return my car. I work for, I work for the last season. I work in Belgium, and was pretty lucky. The Federation gave me a car, and they also allowed me to use the car during the break that I had after the World Championships. But time is over, so I need to, I need to return the car. Today I'm going to go back to the Federation, say goodbye to everybody, and then fly back to the south France, where a new challenge is coming up for me. I'm going to be the sort of, I guess, Director of swimming in antib, one of the traditional, traditional Club program in France. And it's going to be, it's going to be busy working with the club, working with French Federation, and also we're going to set up a world aquatics program where, you know the development swimmer is going to come, I think 12 of them going to come this weekend, plus Spanish guy, French girl and maybe an Australian swimmer. I'm not going to tell you who yet, so it's going to be interesting. We could have between 15 and 16 different nationalities. The good news is that I'm going back with my family, and that's the reason why I'm I don't stay in in Belgium at a pretty tough, tough year on the swimming party was amazing. As I said to you before, I think there's no nation in the world that broke 50 national records in one season. That's what we achieve, what the swimmers achieve in Benjamin eight show course and 22 long course. So this young, you know, young group of kids are coming through, still young, still a lot to do, but certainly in the right direction. So I'm proud of what I did, even though I took the decision to go back home. Well,
Paul Barnett 02:32
we're going to get into the long arc of your career, and we're going to trace the Olympic successes along the way until we until we arrive at this present moment. But I guess Fred, we need to start with the big names that you've worked with, Nick Baker, Greg Troy, Paul Bergen, and, of course, someone who we both respect greatly, Bill swetton. And I know you've also gone over. You've met Eddie Reese. You've just had the chance to work with some of the leaders, the legends of world swimming and Fred. I guess from this experience watching these people up close, what is it you think the great coaches do differently that sets them apart?
Fred Vergnoux 03:11
Well, I think you know, first, as you say, it's pretty lucky to be able to spend time, long time, short time with these guys. I have to say, though, sometimes it's not easy to access the top coaches, and you need to insist, my story is back in the 90s. At the end of the 90s, I wanted to go to America in the summer and do some training camps there and learn from the best nation. And it's a true story, but I sent 82 emails and no reply 81 and then on the number 82 I was still trying, I got an answer back. And that's when I took my flight, going to Miami, and I was with a coach called Nick Baker, a coach from Canada was working there in account, in a camp, you know, soon camp, summer camp. So I spent the whole summer Dev, and that's basically where the story started. Went to the Aska clinic, travel the the country. Had a chance to be with Paul. Be again. I remember to visit Paul and say, Hey, Paul, is this Fred? Yeah, I remember you, Fred, going going to some backstroke, start with these guys. I was like, okay, so that was, like, straight, straight in, you know, like no time to waste.
So the reason why I wanted to do that is because I wanted to really know from the best, learn from the best, understand what's what's performing, performance in swimming. So I guess maybe a piece of advice. That's something that I think all the coaches should do. I always say that my my path, my trajectory, is probably not something that I can recommend to people, because it's it's quite unique. It's difficult. You know, my friend, I used to say that my, my luggage were my best friend, you know, so. I didn't have a lot of social life at that time. You know, in the summer, everybody was going to, you know, have a bit of time at the beach, whatever I was I was going to camps. I was going to visit coaches. But this is how, what, what, I guess, started to make the difference. [PB1]
And when I came back from all of this, straight away, I was working with, you know, top swimmers, and people started to know, me and get, you know, excited about, you know, my way of coaching. And as I said to you before we started the recording, you know, I'm quite late to learn. You know, I learned, I learned slow. I was very arrogant when I was young, and I didn't really listen much to them when they were saying about, you know, taking care of yourself, making sure you know during the week you can have an afternoon off or morning off, spend your weekend with the family, and that's something that I learned recently. Have to say, I just turned 50 last month. But the reason about my my decision to not carry on until Paris with Belgium is is actually to to be able to be with my family on the daily it's a daily moment, you know, or at least on a weekly plan. Because be on your own is it's it's difficult, it's demanding. I remember when Bill was in the UK, and he was the he was the boss. There was a performance director, his wife, cherry, she was in Australia, so he was doing quite a lot of traveling. He imagined traveling you imagine, traveling from from the UK to Australia. It's very long, it's difficult. And he was always tired, you know, it was, it was very, very, very demanding. That's the sort of thing that when you go to competition and you see the swimmers, you know, winning medals, having success, or not necessarily success, you know, be there doing what they can. You know, no one really value that. No one really understand what's behind the scene, you know, in terms of the coaches.
So now I'm kind of, you know, a voice for the coaches to say, you know, listen to the Eddie's and the beats with Nam and and the Michael board when they say, you know, family first, take care of yourself. You know, take a weekend off, get someone to come in and coach on a Friday. And you go, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, have a bit of a break, etc, because it's it, what we do is difficult. [PB2]
And that makes me think about, you know, like a little conversation with Dean boxel in Fukuoka last month, you know, and he said basically that he disconnect a few weeks, and then he's full on until the Olympics, and he's going to have no connection with no one that's going to be him, his group of swimmer. And he doesn't want, he's afraid we will speak after the Olympics, and it was quite intense, you know, but, but that's, that's you don't have any choice.
Paul Barnett 07:39
Well, I'm going to ask you about not having a choice later on, but I want to start with this, this great quote I've got from you, Fred, you say, I'm just a guide. I can't make them work harder. They have to have that in themselves. That is the difference between being a finalist in the Olympics and getting the medal. Now it's the first part of this quote that I found interesting, where you say, I'm just a guide, so you've just reached 50 life change, and I would like to ask you, if you had to write a position description for the job of a guide, what would be some of the key things you'd put in it?
Fred Vergnoux 08:15
I think, I think perhaps, perhaps the first thing is to understand that there's a process, there's a process to get there, to perhaps be able to say, one day, you know, I'm going to guide you. I'm going to help you. And that's, that's what my friend Tim Kerrison called, you know, the intuition. And we had a very good conversation last year about intuition, and I tried to pick his brain. And basically, we were talking about experience, you know, the the amount of season that you spend on the poolside, the amount of swimmers that you coach, the amount of competition that you go through, the amount of training camp that you do, so all of this, there's there's some kind of accumulation, there's some kind of cycles within your own life, within your own swimming, I guess, experience and all of these give you a little bit of intuition in a moment, in some some moment where you gotta make decision. And sometimes your decision is not necessary based on, on your plan or your Excel telling you this is the meters that you made, and you made this freestyle and did that amount of week, or we have six weeks left before the competition. It's more like straight to the human being and connection. And Bill. Bill always says, you know, the key to success is the relation between the athlete and and the coach. And I think, I think that's 1% true. [PB3]
So I guess the more you're you accumulate experience, the more intuition you can have, and the more access, I like to say that access you have to the person, to the to the athlete. And the job that we have is to make sure we really explain. What it takes, what, what, what job must be done, what implication we expect from the from from the from the streamers in Spain. There's a guy who worked with me, from what became a friend, and according to mentor coach, you know, I don't, I don't like to call him a psychologist or whatever. So he's the mentor coach, and he was always saying that, you know, there's a price to pay, and this is something else that us, the coaches we have, we have the responsibility to explain to the swimmers What's the price to to pay. Because you cannot do everything. You can go to the movie on the weekend, you can have a boyfriend, you can live in your own apartment. You don't have to be in a training center. You can choose to go to university. You can choose to learn online, etc, etc. You have to do that, but the job has to be done at the end of the day. You need to deliver. And if you want to deliver, you got to go through the, you know, through the tunnel and and it's difficult, assuming it's very, very difficult. So if you look at the typical season where you're going to be, where you're going to be jealous at the end of the season, you know it's it's not in the middle, it's not at the beginning, it's right at the end. That's where the most it's the most important. But to get there, you got this trial, this competition is qualification meet, and if you don't get that passport, you cannot get to the main competition. So once, once you understand that it's it's a little bit easier to explain where it's going to be challenging during the season. And well, you expect the best of the swimmers. Why? Also they're gonna have some time for them to disconnect a little bit. And then you, you build your, you build your, your your season. But I guess these guys, they can really transform a dream that the swimmers has into somehow like a reality package that you have on on a daily basis. I don't know if I explain myself, myself very well. You know, if you, if you go to, you go to a club, like now, I go to a pool, to club or whatever, and I say, Hey, who wants to go to the Olympics? Everybody's gonna say, Yeah, I want to go to the Olympics. Everybody. And then if you start to list what it takes to go to the Olympics, perhaps some hands gonna drop and drop and drop, and maybe not everybody's going to be that keen to go to the Olympics, you know? And that's the beauty of it, you know. It's not for everybody.
Paul Barnett 12:29
Fred, do you see the people you train as athletes or swimmers first? And does it really matter?
Fred Vergnoux 12:38
Well, no, it doesn't matter. My the way I've been, I guess raised myself, is more as an athlete, and the way I consider my swimmers are athletes, so, you know. And I think Bill was pretty, pretty surprised when, when, when I went to the UK work with him, by the amount of work that we would do outside of the pool, but I want them to run, to climb, to lift when I can. It's not always easy to arrange, but I like to go, after Christmas, to the mountain and do some cross country skiing, which is fantastic for swimming. We also do downhill swimming. I know in some country, it's a federation that don't, don't want the swimmer to ski. But look, you know, you can have an accident going away from home and bike and you fell down. So we do a lot, a lot a lot of of activities at the end of the day in the water. Is the water is such a limitation that there is not, you cannot get strong if you stay in the pool, you cannot get that flexible if you stay in the pool. The I don't want to go too much into detail, maybe something that you can call the muscle elasticity, also can have some kind of limitation if you just stay in the pool. And now I'm thinking, I was watching the World Track and Field last week. And you know, when they run, you imagine the 200 I don't know you're saying in English, the channel flat, or the one road flat. You see these guys in the heat. So the semi final, they run super fast, and then 1520, meters before they start, they stop. You know, they stop the effort, but they still go super fast, you know? And that's down to the muscle, the elasticity of the muscle. So even though they stop the effort, they maintain the speed. So so well with the technique and everything. And then in the final they go max to the end, or close to the to the end. So that's the sort of thing that if you if you only swim that you probably miss miss out, and if you do miss out, then you limit yourself. So I think as as coaches, we we have to reflect a lot. Personally, I'm a little bit worried about the amount of now activities that people do on. Land and that probably, maybe I'm going to be a little bit negative there, but a waste of time. You know, you see a lot of exercises and this stress call and that. But you know, if you want to get strong at the end of the day, you need to lift weight. If you want to be fit, then you gotta, you gotta go and run, you know, not 20 minutes, but 4045, a bike or whatever. So that's one of one aspect, and that's one one worry that that I have, that we have the coaches. And the second one is the the lack of physical education, the basic physical education that pretty much doesn't exist anymore in school. So I remember a few years ago, in a talk, I show a presentation about the Dean amount of hours per week that the kids play outside. And I'm going to be wrong. I can't remember. I'm going to tell you a mistake, let's say, 15 hours per week, paying outside, 2002 1010 nowadays, no zero. The kids didn't go up. They don't go outside. They don't play anymore, with with, as we used to do, you know, with a ball, climb a tree, jump in a lake somewhere, you know, and go home and full of mud that doesn't exist anymore. So not only you don't play outside, you don't do anything in school as physical education. And then when you go to the to the club, let's say swimming, you only swim. So I think this is also one of the reasons why perhaps the evolution is slow in swimming.
Paul Barnett 16:39
There's another controversial idea I think you've got, and it's about planning, you say, and this is a quote from you, so I think it's important that you stick with the plan, because if you do change your plan, you're not going to be able to understand and assimilate if the success or the failure because of your plan or because of the change that you made. It's a little controversial because, you know, it sort of infers this idea that you're not responding to or reacting to the environment around you. But, I mean, I'm in trade free. Could you tell us how you came to formulate this view?
Fred Vergnoux 17:10
Yeah, I think it's down to again, maybe, maybe down to experience and down to the confidence that you have in your own, in your own plan and your own and yourself, and also in your in your program, in your swimmer. So I think the the reason why I say that is because I found myself in situations a few times, and I guess that's a great thing actually. You know, at that time, it's difficult, but then you learn a lot where you're not you cannot really explain why things didn't do good. Didn't go well at that competition, where, when you go into the competition, you have so much confidence, and you are like, Oh my God, this competition is going to be amazing. So come back from the competition wasn't great. Don't really understand difficult to put words on. And you realize that it's not one or two semesters, it's the entire group. So there's a mistake that you made in the planning, not enough rest, too much rest. Not enough speed, too much speed, whatever you know. And the reason was that, you know, perhaps a couple of weeks before, you know, I went in a different path, and I did change the plan, so I didn't know. It was difficult to assess was because of the change, it was because of the pressure the qualification meet. So then you you start to have a lot more question, you know, to address, and it's demanding, and it's difficult to have a good analysis and analyzed, and because it's so difficult, then it's difficult to move on and to make to go into the next to the next cycle. So that's why I think we when we make a plan, or we decide, this is a 12 week cycle, three block of three weeks. That's nine plus this one, blah, blah, blah. That the main frame, you know, the big, the big the bigger plant, the micro cycle, the meso cycle, and the micro cycle, which is a week, usually in swimming, I think this must not change. But that doesn't mean, Paul, that within the week or in between during the session, you don't make changes. Because what we do is we basically make changes all the time. You know, it's pretty simple to say, hey, tomorrow we're gonna do, I don't know, 16, 1650s we go progressive, 123, plus one, at whatever pace. Okay? And you do that, and you see the first 450s things don't do very well. And then you don't change. No, you make, you make some adjustment. That's coaching. You know, that's what you do on in life, you know, on the pool side, but, but I think that the difference, what I try to explain in that phrase is that the bigger plan, the bigger frame, stick with it, because then at the end, a lot easier to to assist and. And if you have to make changes, it's going to be okay, it's going to be possible. Otherwise you want, yeah, you turn crazy.
Paul Barnett 20:06
Fred in that answer there, you talked about pressure, stress, and just before that, you talked about the mental skills coach that you'd use, the mental preparation coach. So I'm really intrigued to understand if you were putting together a gold medal mental preparation program, what would be the key things that would be in there?
Fred Vergnoux 20:30
For me, the key thing is, is training. And I guess the best sports psychologist that you can have is your training. That's for me, no question about it. And so madly, they don't need to do mental preparation. They don't need to have a sports psychologist. They don't need to have a mentor coach. But in some cases, it's important. So for example, with with with Mireya the the year of 2016 we work with with, with a guy we work many years with, with Richie, the the mental coach and and I have to say that he was more my mentor coach for me than for the for the swimmers. So he worked with the swimmers on a one on one basis, and sometimes we do things together as a group. But it was more also some kind of a guide for me, to guide them, you know, and to also understand where I'm gonna have to maybe set back a little bit, or I can go full on, or maybe that one's going to be sensible, because something at home is not doing very well. So it was like, we were like a really good team working together. But it's, it's, it's someone who's going to be able to, I guess, prepare, prepare you for everything. Because at the Olympics, everything can happen. So you it's not on, it's not just about, yeah, we're gonna plan, uh, plan A, plan B, plan C. Now we're gonna have plan A, B, C, D, all the way to the end of the alphabet. And you want to really be able to respond immediately, losing no energy to any kind of situation. [PB4]
And I give you an example. In Tokyo, the day before the competition starts, there's no bus going, going back from the from the pool to the to the village, and all the swimmer was sitting on the floor, on the road, sorry, not on the floor as of the pool. I remember Michaels was sitting there 40 degrees, you know, you will see the the president of the fluorescent with with a car and chauffeur, and all the athletes on the road waiting no bus, and that was for about 40 minutes. So that moment, if you start to panic, the competition doesn't even start, and you start to have a little bit of stress, then you lose a little bit of energy, right? So that's just one thing. And then there's many, Mister many stories like this. The day of the final of the turn of butterfly with Meria, we decide to go to different pool, kind of be away, you know, and not go to the competition pool, just myself. And we start to walk, and it starts to rain. So it was like, Okay, get to the pool. It'll be wet. We do the training, recover. The stern is back, and we and then we, we walk back. Start walk raining again, so again, fully wet, and you, I was like, Oh my God, why? Why I came to that pool? Why are we here? Why I didn't go to the competition pool with a bus? Now we only you wait. Gotta walk back to the village. We arrive at the village, and in that moment, Maria, she says, um, let's have a have lunch. And I look at the time, you know, I mean, like all the door schedule, you know, seven o'clock, 715 this, this, this. And I was like, Yeah, we're supposed to have lunch in two hours, because the final way at 10, I think she's from at 1056, so the old, the old plan, right? The whole plan went like radically different. And if you're not prepared to do for this, then you create yourself some serious problems, serious issues. So this is where the mental coach has had a massive input at the massive work during the entire season, something that also people don't really address. You You walk. You do a lot of walking in the Olympics, a lot. So we have to do that in advance. Start to walk, you know, a lot in advance. And the mental coach will park maybe two kilometers away, wait for Mireya. And then sometimes they will work together. And then we will simulate, you know, what, what you what you do at the at the Olympics. So it's a little bit of, it's almost an obsession of trying to come up with everything possible that can happen at the Olympics, even though you know that things are gonna happen, you don't even imagine. Like, you know, I said to you the day before the competition starts, there's no bus. So mentally you gotta be really, really strong. I think. I think I said, I say that. I don't know who said that, but you know, at the Olympics, you have eight swimmers in the final. They are all really fit physically. They are really good with their technique, the skills. They all have a plan in terms of strategy. They all have a perfect plan, and probably the one that win is the one that is the best prepared mentally to to cope with that situation. Okay, you're going to tell me, yes, ladyki, you know your titmus and Mackintosh. Now, we got athletes that are dominant, right? They, they do have a an extra level. So I can say that they not that they win easy, because it's never easy, but they're both the rest. But in the case of Maria, for example, in in Rio, she won by 003, of a second, which, which is that four centimeter. So we could not, not think about every, every kind of scenario. And the fact is when, when we discuss with, with the biomechanic, the biomechanical that work with me in Spain was amazing, because we would really not do race analysis. It is, it is important, and you look at it and you get some information. But I think what we did was pretty, pretty cool. We would do a race analysis of everybody is going to swim in the final against Maria, and what kind of tendency they gonna have. So we knew the way the Maddie, the Australian, would swim. We knew the way the Japanese girl will will swim. We knew on the last one is she would come back and get close to Maria. Maria should be ready mentally, maybe, to see the tiger coming, coming back. And we knew that at the turn at the 100 meter, when Maria would do the turn, she would see the fit of of the Australian swimmer. So that's something that I took off from, from the analysis. And with the mental cost I would prepare Mary, I said, don't panic. You gotta go 60 flats. She went, 10000, by the way, do your turn. When you push you up, you see the you see the feet. You see the feet of Madeleine. That means that you're gonna go probably 59 559. Four. And then you do your 50, or whatever you have to do in your 50. Did it anyway, and that that happened exactly like this, you know. So if, if we forget about it, imagine the athlete get to the wall, do the turn, and when you push off the feet of the swimming is, are like, gone. That's difficult. Mental is like, whoa. Like, I'm halfway, and she's a bullying in front of me. No, I'm gonna win, you know, and and you, you're going to a totally different mental state at that specific moment.
Paul Barnett 27:48
Brenda, your your thirst for knowledge and learning is comes through in all the interviews I read about you. There's the story, of course, of taking off to America to learn without a job. You talked about it earlier with the 81 emails that you sent, or the 81 letters, I guess, that you sent off back then, and you've had great mentors around you for your whole career. So I know you're always learning and you're always questioning yourself and trying to get better, but has there been a moment where you actually stopped and made some adjustments to your style and your approach based on what you'd learned,
Fred Vergnoux 28:24
yes, yes. I think I learned. I think yesterday was driving, was thinking about about the conversation that we are now, that we have now, you and me. And I realized that when I was young, I was a copy pass coach. So I would, well, I would do, you know, what I learned from, from the mentors, and also I would the way I would coach. It was also down to the coaches that had myself. And I was lucky to have some great coaches when I was young. I was a teenager, when I went to training center, I had a coach. He was a was a sport science guy, and he became a PhD and a teacher, and we were basically the guinea pigs that time for him, you know, and he was test testing us every day, and but I was so interesting, so I learned a lot from that, especially the, you know, the VO two Max zone. So that's, that's why I think then I went to learn a master in physiology. Very, very interesting. And then, you know, with all the coaches that I met, especially the American coaches, I would do a bit of copy past coaching, you know, mixing everything. But then, but then, I don't know, when I started to go a little bit, probably early 2000 and especially 2000 2003 and four that the three seasons there I was on my own, and I was lucky to have some amazing swimmers. That's where I started to work with the girls from Belarus. I tweet three swimmers from Belarus. One of them became, became my wife, Alina, and I learned a lot from the from. Uh, from Belarus, Ukraine, the Russian system. We know when I talk to you about the physical aspect of I was amazed. I remember, like yesterday, going to a pool in in Minsk in Belarus, small pool, 24 degrees green water. You could not see the bottom. And I was watching these two, two guys swim a day, beautiful freestyle. And then I went to the coach, and I said, are they are the senior swimmer? What they do? What if she said, No, no, no. This kid is 12 years old, and the one is 13 years old. And was like, I was shocked, unbelievable. The technique, the length, they were kids. And it was like watching Alexander Popov swimming, you know, beautiful skills. So, yeah, lucky to learn from a lot of people. And then slowly I went into more my my way of doing things. So I think in 2001 2002 I was still doing a little bit of everything. And then I said, Okay, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going on my own. I'm going to try to do my own thing. This is where I did implement a lot more activities of start outside of the pool, and in 2003 when, when Alina won the world championship in in Barcelona during the preparation in a month of May, we we had a cycle where we do lifting in the morning after swimming, and lifting in the afternoon after swimming. And we did that for four weeks, and the girls were really, really fit, really strong. So I learned a lot from that the possibilities to do even more, you know, power work outside of the of the pool, and then it's just, you know, experimenting, trying with Maria was fantastic, because we started to do, you know, four or 5k and then we'll say, Okay, let's do six, seven, and then let's do seven, eight. And then we went down, we went to camp in altitude, and I think we didn't do less than one six kilometers per week. And we did that for four weeks non stop. So, you know, a lot of people, I got criticized. It's not necessary, or, you know, you're stupid. It's too much. Yet, she had no injury. She would absolutely love it. She was demanding to do more. To say, Wait, slow down. It's okay. You know, she broke world record, she won Olympic medals, and more than anything, called that's the way she needed to train, because we try to do less, and we try to do, you know, previous privatization, or more speed, less speed, more like that, and it didn't work. So, you know, at the end of the day, you need to find the right, let's say not recipe, because I really don't like this, this expression, but the right balance for each athlete. And that's difficult, because when you coach, you coach a group of swimmers. So like, next week, I'm gonna have, I think, 1516, swimmers, you know, 16 swimmers that live free, rent free in your head, and they all want to to have you just for for themselves. You know, very selfish nowadays the swimmers and you have to manage the whole thing, and you need to understand what's the best for each of them. So that's, that's the beauty of it. And when you go to America and when you go to Australia, you really see what's what coaching is about. You know, Michael Ball and and Dean and these guys and American coaches, how they separate groups. And one day you go with the speed group, and next day you go to the distance one, and that morning maybe you need to do more breaststroke. So you stay, you stay with me, and we're going to do this. And, you know, really working as a team is, it's, it's pretty great. That's, that's what I'm going to do in on TV. That's what I want to do. You know, after a little bit enough of you know, being one coach, one group, and that's all you do. And then, okay, see you at the end of the season. Was good. Was great, okay, next year, nice. It's it's growing.
Paul Barnett 33:45
Well, I love this idea of people living redfree in your head. Let's talk about that a little bit more later on. But if I've got my research right, Fred, you speak French, English, Spanish, Italian and a little Russian. Now, if I got that right, yeah,
Fred Vergnoux 34:04
yeah, my Russian is very limited,
Paul Barnett 34:08
but if I had that, if I had those languages together with all the other countries that you've coached and the people you've met when you've got Flemish probably on top of that from your time in Belgium, I'm just wondering what this has taught you about communicating with people and the skills or the the tools that you use now that potentially you weren't using early in your career.
Fred Vergnoux 34:31
Yeah, I think the one day, one one day, there's a guy called Diane Townsend. I was in South Africa for a while, and then Diane swong with me for a little bit, and he said something pretty, pretty, pretty nice, I guess. He said, Fred can really get the best out of after out of the show. So I think this is perhaps something that I can, that I do well, but, but not a lot. Not all the swimmers they want. That you know, not not a lot of people open up. Not everybody's willing to have the coach go straight into you and basically tell you what he thinks in a pretty direct way. I'm directing my coaching and I am directing my communication. I don't really like to go around people. I don't really like to be fake. If I have to say something, then I say, you know, like I remember a few months ago saying to a girl, yeah, well, if you don't start to work on your water, on your underwater, you know, it's not going to be great at the World Championship. And she took it back and say, No, I'm just doing my job. I'm just not telling you. Know, you're great underwater. You call it one of the best in the country. But sometimes you forget about it. So don't forget about it. Put it back into practice. That was it, you know. So that's more my that's more my way of of being also because, you know, I guess now being 50 years old, I just, I just don't want to waste my time. Maybe it's a little bit selfish, but I think it's, it's a lot more more it's a lot more efficient. And the good thing is, as a coach, and again, that's something that sometimes people don't value, or maybe don't really understand, is that we have this direct access to the swimmers, and we spend so much time with the swimming. So I used to say, now it's not, it's not true anymore. But I used to say that I know I knew Mireya more than my daughter, because it was eight, nine hours with Maria per day, and I was 25 minutes with my daughter when she would come back at home. We put dinner, and then she will, she'll go to bed so, and that was true, but, but as the coaches we can, we can say things that perhaps, you know, mom and dad not gonna say, or perhaps the teacher not gonna say, or the friends not gonna shit, not gonna say. But then when you go to this competition, you know, like the World Championship and the Olympic it's brutal, you know, so you gotta get them also ready and ready to face, you know, the intensity of being under at the Olympics now. Now, I said to the guys, I say, Look, you know, nice hotel. Go down to hotel. There's a bus. Take you to the pool. Beautiful pool. The pool is going to be great in Paris. But when you live in the Olympic Village, it's, it's not, it's not that fun. You know, you get a share in Tokyo, I was sharing with a diving team. So they will leave at three in the morning. Don't tell me why. We will leave at five in the morning for the open water, come back and then go to the swimming. It's crazy. You don't sleep. A lot of noise, a lot of people, huge amount of distraction. And for the amount of athletes that you have there in the village, in a big village, if you look at the one that perform, then the number is very, very little. So it's tough to to succeed at Olympics, very tough.
Paul Barnett 37:51
One of the things that fascinates me about swimmers is they start young. They're not even teenagers. Most of them, I guess, when they start, they have to do it very early in the morning before other things, which means they have to make life sacrifices very early
38:09
in their life. And they do this for years and years and years now.
Paul Barnett 38:13
You've been the national coach of Scotland, Spain, England and Belgium, and you've also coached in the USA, France. So you've, you've seen a lot of different people, and I'm just wondering, what have you learned about the motivation, or the drivers of motivation when it comes to to getting people to a place where they're willing to put themselves through
38:34
this kind of sacrifice?
Fred Vergnoux 38:37
I think you know, you know, again, yesterday, thinking nowadays, you listen in, in this old podcast and on Twitter, yeah, the kids now, they don't want to do anything and this. And I don't, I don't, I don't really think it's that's, that's true. I think there's a lot of lot of swimmers walking out. There's a lot of swimmers willing to pay the price. There's a lot of talented swimmer, um, everywhere in the world. You wake up early, it's just swimming is not going to change. You know, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta swim twice a day. So, yeah, if you want to swim before school, then you gotta go at six in the morning, because school is still at eight or 830 whatever. And then when you finish school, you go back again to the to the pool, and you swim, and then you go home and you sleep at 738 in Spain, it's a little bit different, because we do everything a little bit later. But I remember 2010 when I arrived in Spain, I dropped to the pool. So we will swim at 545 Well, 545 on the pool side, and start to swim at six. And it was driving at 530 and then I was looking people running and doing some activities. And I was like, Well, you know, remember being on the Gold Coast at 430 in the morning. The morning, when the sun is up and door place is busy of people running and swimming in the sea. So I was like, okay, even though Spain is maybe not a, you know, like a sporty nation, then it was very active, uh, very active, uh, city. So, you know, it's just down to, i. Is where you can call the routine. You know, the routine that you have, the effort that the parents may make to drive the kids, you know, every single day at 536 o'clock in the morning, some of them go back home to sleep. Some of them do a bit of sport. Some of them go straight to work. So it's it, that's what you said. You know that this, this sacrifice, full package. A lot of people involved. I have a very an amazing story of of a swimmer in Spain. He had, he really wanted to swim with me, but he could not be in the training center because he was not good enough to be funded to be in a training center, and he lived 40 minutes away. So he would, he would have a plan of the week and ask his family. So his dad would drive on a Monday, Mum, we pick him up on the Monday night. Grandmother, we go and do the drive on the Tuesday morning. And then his uncle, because walking there, will come and pick him up on and so the whole family, the whole the entire family, was involved for him to be able to come to the center and train with us. He did that for one year, and then he got better, and then he had the scholarship, and he could, he could stay at a turning center. So, you know, I think this, this all I don't know recall that sacrifice Paul, because I just don't like it. I just prefer talking about choices and making the right choices, choices, or at least taking a decision to do something. This is what I want to do, right in this case, that coach is now coach. He actually is going to visit Dave Durgan today in California. So, you know, he made a decision, and he had to go through the entire family to be able to drive him to the pool. That's what he want. That's how bad we want it, you know. And I think, I think us, the coaches, we need to value that, because I'm sure there is millions of swimmers that really want it bad, that want to make a difference, and they know where they have to go if they want to make a difference. They know which coach they should they should perhaps, contact if they want to make a difference. They know which program, which club. You know, they're very smart these kids. So instead of talking about sacrifice, I like talking about making the right decision and or at least taking decision, assume your decision, and then assess, and then maybe, you know, change, make a new one, take a new one. But, yeah, I was thinking also about, you know what you said, long process. A lot of people say, Yeah, swimming is boring, yes, long and yeah, you swim for 20 years or 10 years, or whatever. I think in France, there is some statistic that say that when you get to the when you get to become French national champion, number one in your country, then you have a 10 years window where you could be number one in the world. So it's, is that long 10 years? I don't know. I don't think so. And in 10 years, not only you can do a lot of things in your sport, but you can change your life, you know. So the life of these kids, like that kid, Paul, because he came to the center with us, he was, he was no one. Then now he's going to be a coach, and he's going to go to the center next, next month, I think it starts, and maybe it's going to be the next number one coach in Spain. I really want that. You know, Alberto Martinez, I don't know if you know this, the guy. He came to me in 2018 and I didn't know who he was in Spain. And then the Federation said, Yeah, this guy is a distance guy. I should swim with you. And was like, Yeah, okay. And then when he started to swim with me, I was like, Oh, I'm not sure that guy should be in a training center, training here with us, you know. And the year after, he came eight in a 10k in Korea, and he qualified for the Olympics. So there's a lot of stories like this. You know, backstroke girl coming swimming the one of the backstroke one year after she made a four by two qualify for the Olympics, four by two. Freestyle. It was, it was amazing. And I think again, we have a lot of responsibility, as the coaches the Federation, to get these kids excited about it, you know, and and we can talk about it later on, but, you know, this is where your mentality has to be pretty, pretty open. You know, don't limit yourself. Don't think because you do breaststroke when you're 15 or 16, it's going to be restored for the for the rest of your life. Maria, when I came she never swam distance. She worked two times the world record in the 1500 short course. She had an Olympic medal in the 800 no one knows that the first 800 freestyle that she did actually in Belgium. You know what she did? She swam 100 meter, and after one meter, she got out of the pool because she was scared. And then was pretty bit of drama, you know, and then we talk about it, and she was afraid. I don't think, I don't think I'm, I'm not capable to finish 800 long course, short course, um, I'm okay, I'm good. Long course, it's, it was too much, you know. And then two years after, she get a silver medal, and, you know, pix in later, but, um. You know, first, first female to go under two minute short course. We talk about it a lot, you know, and the way we did that was with underwater and resting with Katica also.
So if you just look on the paper, you don't, you don't, you don't imagine the possibilities of the of the athlete. And the way you do that is to show them that there's a lot more in them, a lot more. And that's, that's what you do in training. That's why you need to surprise them, but maybe not every day, but quite, quite often, maybe a couple of times a week, challenge them and make sure that they see that there is progression. That's, I think, for me, it's, it's the key of everything you know, see that they progress. Oh, I was better than last week. Yeah, don't worry. Next morning gonna you're gonna be even better. And that's how you know, we we move on,[PB5]
Paul Barnett 45:52
Fred, just one final question. If I could you're 50, you said so in the podcast. You're back in France coaching. You've made a family decision. I'm sure that you're going to coach for many, many more years, though, and I'm sure you're going to touch the lives of many,
46:10
many more athletes.
Paul Barnett 46:13
And when these athletes reflect on their time with you, what is it that you hope they say when they describe the legacy you left with them? I
Fred Vergnoux 46:23
i You know, I think, well, I don't really know. The thing is, there is so many, so many swimmers that swam with me that now are coaching or went into being sports psychologist, or went into being a nutritionist, for example, you know, stay, stay in the, stay in the in the world of what we do, becoming official, going into string and conditioning, that this, that's it For me, this, that's, that's it. That's the, you know, being at the World Championship with, with 123, fourth, my ex assistant, you know, yesterday, my my assistant, I said to you, she was in Spain and struggling because she had a tough summer, you know, whatsapping, and Fred and I need to disconnect and talking about this. I think this, this is what me, I did, when, when, when, when the when my coach, when I was 12, and then when I was 14, and then when I was 18, these coaches, that's what they did to me, you know? They gave me the patience for for me to decide to become a coach. You know, I did that. It was very natural. I knew that's that's what I wanted. And when you see these guys doing, you know, something similar, not, I'm not saying exactly the same name, but something similar, that's, I guess, I get like, it's just just an amazing, amazing feeling, an amazing feeling. I don't know if I can compare, you know, to winning the Olympics or breaking world record. It's different. But to to know that there's so many people that follow you, somehow, it's just just fantastic. I did, I'm doing a bit of planning with two coaches from Argentina. They used to swim with me in Spain. They became world champion, the two of them in in open water. And a couple of weeks ago, they called me. They said, Friday, we got a competition in October here in South America, and we got 12 weeks. I said, don't worry. And I was in holiday. I just got my computer 12 weeks, and I put some key set and I said, this is key set one, two and three. Gonna do on Tuesday, on Thursday, on Saturday. Please develop the key set one, key set two, key set three, and we did the two together. And then I'm excited, because today they need to tell me how the key set two, which is the second phase from last week, is going, is going to go, and to be part of that, and to be involved still with, with, with these guys. Yeah, it's again, for me, it's a lot more time consuming. But, you know, the feeling is amazing. And when, when I received the email from from Bill suet Nam, or is now in Africa, doing a safari, and I received, I received a photo yesterday, a photo of a lion, you know, drinking. And I was like, oh, a photo of a lion drinking. Great. But then the analysis of the photo of Bill is like, this is why he's drinking, and that's the position, and you can see the muscle there, and it's crazy. So, you know, somehow, you know, the mentor that I have, the mentors that I have, me still, you say, you know, I mean, I think Bill told me you're gonna be good for 1015 years. So it's pretty cool to know that I can carry on doing a good job for for maybe 1015 years, and then the younger one coming through, you know? This, this whole, let's say, this whole connection between, between the coaches. I don't know if there's a word for that, but it's, it's, it's pretty sweet, you know? And then when you. When you get the chance to go to the main competition, like in the summer, I always said to the coaches, I said, Go and speak to where there is. And maybe he's gonna say piece of you don't know, go and speak to Michael Ball. And I saw Dennis cutter in and I said, Dennis comp, and you know, what are you doing? Oh, you helping China. Okay, why? And this and that and and it's going to give you one little tip and one little phrase. And this is how, this is how you get, I think you get better, because at the end of the day, what we need to do is to make sure that we never, never go into some kind of routine, the routine of your training, the weekly plan, as I say, you know, I call the wiki plan. That doesn't really change. It's always the same. But within the plan, you gotta really make sure everybody's outside the comfort zone as much as possible. And some people are going to break down. Some people are not going to be able to make it. But again, we talk about performance. So it's, it's brutal, it's, it's difficult.
Paul Barnett 51:01
Fred, it's been great chatting with you. I'm so glad I chased you all around the world for a year. If you want to give an example to young coaches about chasing other great coaches to speak to you can point them in my direction. I'm always happy to share the tenacity with which you need to chase them, but also the willingness,
51:19
as you've shown tonight. You know, if
Fred Vergnoux 51:22
you, if you want something, go for it. It's not going to come from the sky. No one's going to come. No one is going to come and do it for you. That's also maybe something that I learned a little bit late. You know, sometimes we expect that. Me, I deserve that. No, you don't deserve anything. You know what? What you get is because you walk out and you keep you keep fighting. But these people are accessible. You know, they are accessible in an easy way, difficult way doesn't matter. But I think everybody should have a mentor, for sure. For me, it's going to be, I'm going to have a mentor always, or more mentors, and if I can be now, sometimes I feel I'm also also a part of different projects with with younger coaches. So perhaps they see me as a mentor. And that's how the tradition, tradition is gonna, is gonna carry on, you know? And I think we should, maybe, perhaps people like you should do more interview with, with the lack of Bill you know, and Michael Ball and Eddie Ruiz and these guys, because there is too much people thinking they know and they don't you know, and it's It's difficult for me to say that. One day, Bill told me, he said, Fred, you don't know what you don't know. And I was like, here we go. And then I went back home, and I was pretty upset. And then I said, I started to think, and I was like, Yeah, you're right. I don't know what I don't know you know. So if you want to know something, then you gotta move on. You gotta move your ass. And when these guys, they're not going to be around anymore, no one's going to tell you this kind of thing, you know. So we have to be we have to protect the sport and we have to protect these people as much as possible.
Paul Barnett 53:15
Fred, thank you so much for tonight, it's been great learning about you and hearing more about your story, and I wish you and the family all the best as they settle into and teams. Yeah,
Fred Vergnoux 53:27
yeah. So new, new project in on tip. And again, I would have really liked to finish the cycle with, with Benjamin, maybe some, some kids gonna come in on team and train with me a little bit. I'm gonna keep in touch, especially with with my my assistant, Wendy. She's a she's a next swimmer from from Netherland. She's amazing coach. She's a physio, she's a strength and conditioning she's a swimming coach, you know, like the full package. And I was very lucky to have her as my as my assistant. So I will, I will carry on being, be in touch and help her the best I can, and also ask her some question. And Belgium niece is, you know, now enough on the flight. So it's probably, it's probably close by, but yeah, I wanted to be back with a family back home. Also being in France leading up into the the Paris Olympics is pretty special, yeah, so it's gonna be, it's gonna be, it is already a very exciting year.
Paul Barnett 54:28
All the best with it. Thank you again.
Fred Vergnoux 54:30
Thank you very much. Bye.